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GDC: Sony Pushes Paid Content in Future PS Home Plans

Sony is holding a number of sessions to help more developers and publishers understand PlayStation Home at this year's Game Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Home director Jack Buser took the stage this morning to reveal some interesting statistics about Home usage, what areas Sony is pushing companies to move towards, and what kind of expansion Home will see throughout 2009.

Buser was visibly excited about the opportunity for PlayStation 3 games to unlock content in Home when the consumer brings home a game. There are limits to this, however. Buser said companies are limited to five "rewards" per title. There is almost no limit, however, on how many "virtual items" publishers can sell through Home. The Street Fighter IV costumes, for example, are a "virtual item."

There are currently 5 million users that have entered the Home space since its launch last year, Buser revealed, with 2.2 million of them coming from North America alone. Sony's found that players spend an average of 40 minutes roaming around Home, usually dedicating roughly 10 minutes to each new game space.

Now, buy stuff to fill this place

Game spaces are going to be coming fast and hard in 2009, too, he promised. Sony expects three new game spaces to launch per month, but that's only a minimum. Buser said it's likely the number will be much higher than three, and that if publishers want to start building a space to premiere in Home, they should set aside about four to six months from start to finish.

Besides game spaces, however, Buser was really pushing companies to produce "virtual items" to sell through Home. Though there's an opportunity to release free "virtual items," Buser was encouraging the audience, consisting largely of developers, to make them paid content.

"We always encourage people to do paid items. Why not make money?," he smiled. "It's great. We price some of our own stuff as low as 49 cents. What can you buy for 49 cents these days? You can't buy a cup of coffee with that. It's a great value for the consumer. They really like that. The idea that I can make my identity my favorite game character is really, really powerful stuff.

The session, which took place immediately after Nintendo President Satoru Iwata's keynote, was sparsely attended. A few questions were asked, but no one in attendance stepped up to the microphone afterwards. Many of the juicier details about Home, Buser teased, required a signed non-disclosure agreement.

Patrick says: This was a business panel, intended to entice developers, publishers and advertisers to understand why Home can be a revenue stream for them. It's easy to get discouraged at Sony's desire for partnering companies to push more paid content over free, but this wasn't a panel about developing a loyal following on Home, it was a panel about generating cash from it. It'll be interesting to see how many decide to actually follow Sony's advice.